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Patrick O’Donnell – Getting back to basics

It’s a personal thing. Forget “stuff”. Forget “bigger is better”. The mountain tourism business, says Patrick O’Donnell, is all about turning people on — one guest at a time. It’s that simple, and that profound.
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Patrick O'Donnell

It’s a personal thing. Forget “stuff”. Forget “bigger is better”. The mountain tourism business, says Patrick O’Donnell, is all about turning people on — one guest at a time. It’s that simple, and that profound.

“It’s not about capital investments or bottom line or shareholder value even,” explains the recently retired boss of Aspen Ski Corp. “Sure, those things matter. But if we can’t get people to FEEL the magic of the mountains for themselves, we’re not going to be in business for long. Ultimately, our job is to help our guests make a personal connection with nature. If we can manage that, the rest will follow.”

O’Donnell certainly walks his talk. On the cusp of his 70 th birthday, he is still as active in the Colorado backcountry — mountain bike riding, paddling and snowboarding — as he’s ever been. And he’s just as much in love with the mountains as he was as a young climber four decades ago. “A former mentor of mine told me something a long time ago that really stuck with me,” he says. “Someone was talking about Europe and all these great cathedrals they’d visited and how much it defined the culture there. And he replied: ‘It’s true, we don’t have anything like that in America. What we do have, however, are national parks and mountains. Those are our cathedrals — natural-made and available to all of us. And we’d do well to cherish them.’”

O’Donnell stops speaking for a moment. Sighs. “So why are we spending so much energy on building ‘stuff’ that untimely de-sensitizes guests to our most important assets?”

Good question. And it comes from a reputable source too. A past president of Whistler Mountain (from 1991to 1993), O’Donnell boasts 40 years of in-the-trenches ski-exec experience. And he’s not afraid to call a spade a shovel. “Heck,” he says, “my first ski-related job was as assistant manager at Badger Pass in California’s Yosemite Park back in 1966. We had a couple of T-bars, a rickety old chair and no capital-development plan at all.” He laughs. “I thought that was the way the ski world would be forever.”

But things change. Today, he says, the mountain resort business has some serious soul-searching to do. “How could we have let things get this far?” he asks. “I look back at the history of our business and I see great vision and lots of positive energy. People like (Mammoth Mountain founder) Dave McCoy weren’t in it to get rich. Yes, they were looking to make a living, but they also wanted to share their passion for the mountains with others. This was a values-based business — and great values at that. But at some point, the thing started to get away from us...”

And it’s going to get worse before it gets better, fears O’Donnell. “Our mountains have now been reduced to lifestyle ‘amenities’,” he explains. “Second-home buyers now come to a mountain town with a shopping list of things they want — pool, ice rink, golf course, fitness centre, library, convention centre, oh yeah and a ski hill — and make their purchases based on how many items on the list they’ve been able to check off...”

It doesn’t help that the ski industry plays up to that attitude. “Take a look at the marketing messages coming from most mountain resorts these days. It’s all about ‘stuff’. Ironically, technology has become the great leveller in our business. Everybody has snowmaking now, everybody has fancy groomers and everybody has the latest and greatest in lifts. We just keep spending and spending…”

Meanwhile, he says, skier/snowboarder numbers remain stagnant. “We keep building more ‘stuff’,” he says, “And then we boast about how clever we are. But then, how many of us are really helping our guests connect with the mountains? How many of us are truly giving people a chance to feel what we feel?”

Keep it human, argues O’Donnell. “We need to introduce a different paradigm to the mix. The mentality today is to maximize everything — build out a resort, for example, right to the edge of its developable boundaries. And that’s just greedy. Instead, we should be looking at ways to optimize the experience. And that doesn’t mean building a six-pack instead of a quad. Maybe we don’t have to be so aggressive with our lift construction. Maybe we need to attach a higher value to open spaces and undeveloped lands. I ‘m not sure what the answer is. All I know is that we need to talk about this more.”

Strong words. And particularly welcome at a time when, to quote O’Donnell, “the ski business is dominated by timid leaders.” Still, to truly understand where’s he’s coming from, we have to travel back in time some — to the mid-60s and his torrid love affair with climbing and iconic Yosemite National Park.

A third-generation Californian, O’Donnell was suffering the typical 9-5 thing in his father’s engineering firm — “I detested every minute of it,” he says — and living only for his weekend climbing escapades. “I was part of the TGIF crowd,” he says. “Come Friday night I was out of San Francisco and headed straight for the mountains!”

It was the golden age of climbing at Yosemite. Legendary figures like Yvon Chouinard, Royal Robbins, Galen Rowell, Chuck Pratt and Warren Harding were pioneering new routes and introducing new climbing styles on a near-daily basis. “I wasn’t of that calibre,” admits O’Donnell, “but I certainly got to hang out and climb with these characters. And whether I was following Harding up Half Dome or just sitting around the campfire with Chouinard — I was starting to develop a feeling for these mountains that I’ve never been able to put into words. So powerful. So intense. It was a direct shot to my soul — and I couldn’t imagine being without it.”

It wasn’t about money. And it certainly wasn’t about career or business or conventional middle-class values. “But it made me feel so good,” he says, “that I began to actively seek it out. And I’m not making this up. When I was in the mountains I felt 10 times more alive. The world seemed a better, brighter place. And I soon realized just how priceless this feeling was for me…”

So priceless, in fact, that O’Donnell quit the family firm at 27 and moved to the mountains to live full-time. “I was extremely frightened to leave engineering,” he admits. “But I felt I’d suffocate if I didn’t make the move.”

Thus was set in motion a process that saw him progress from unemployed climber living in a tent to bell man at Yosemite Lodge to maitre d’ at the fabled Ahwanee Hotel to assistant manager at Badger Pass Ski Area — and all in the space of six months! “It was an amazing time for me,” he recounts. “I was hanging out with people who all had ‘shared truths’ — a way of looking and dealing with the world that was really positive. It was such a wonderfully enlightening feeling.”

He laughs. “You know, Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the songs still in them’? Well, Thoreau would have been thoroughly impressed with the lives we led…”

O’Donnell believes it’s those feelings that he discovered in himself during those early Yosemite years that propelled him up the mountain management ladder — from Badger Pass to Kirkwood, from there to Keystone, then on to Whistler and finally to Aspen. “Once that feeling took hold, it never left me again,” Patrick tells me. “And I NEEDED it. More importantly, I wanted to share it with friends and customers and anybody else I encountered. After all, what’s the point of having such a powerful transformational experience if you can’t turn others on to it too?”

Sounds kind of like a drug to me. Or a religion. He laughs. “Exactly. It’s an addiction for sure. But what a grand addiction.”

Unfortunately, he adds, that feeling isn’t as prevalent among industry leaders as it should be. “If the current leaders are ignoring it, or don’t believe it, or haven’t felt it recently, then somebody else has to do the job. Why not look to the young people who still live that feeling every day of their lives? Why not empower them to carry the message?”

It’s a subject he is absolutely passionate about. “We have this great opportunity to turn kids on to a way of life that is healthy, uplifting and hugely satisfying. And they’re looking to us for leadership and inspiration. So what are we doing about it? We’re giving them ‘stuff’. Shame on us!”

Concludes O’Donnell: “If people read this story and say ‘Pat you’re delusional, there is no problem,’ then we’re all lost.” He sighs. “So here’s my message: You may not think there is a problem. But there is. And you’re late! But if you pay attention now — and change your approach — skier and snowboarder numbers will start to grow again.”

And then he laughs. “Our sport is all about turning people on — getting others to experience that magical mountain feeling I’ve been talking about. Simply providing more ‘stuff’ just won’t do anymore. You can’t build your way out of this one folks…”